


Standing Up

by longnoideatime



Category: Wizards of Waverly Place
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-03 18:12:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4110316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longnoideatime/pseuds/longnoideatime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt over at http://justin-alex.livejournal.com/tag/fanfiction Beware slight changes.<br/>"Theresa passed away a year ago from cancer. Jerry has been in depression ever since. Justin and Alex have grown a lot closer since their moms passing. Justin is overprotective of Alex. One night Alex sneaks out of the house to go to a party, has to walk there but ends up getting raped on the way there. She survives being raped but is never the same again. -Go from there ;)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Compartmentalizing

Pink washed down the drain, and it made her think of the Cat in the Hat, rhyming words beginning to march through her head, preventing her from gasping for air like she felt she maybe needed to. Cat, hat, bat, at, fat, brat, chat, flat, gnat, mat, pat, rat, sat, scat, slat, spat, splat, that, vat-- God, there was no way she could do this. She needed-- she needed-- Alex hunched down in the shower, balanced on the balls of her feet, hugging her knees to her chest, pink still running to the drain as the scalding water failed to fully wash away her mistake. She needed her mother. She needed to have not snuck off to the worst party. And she needed last night never to have happened. But her mother was dead, and what had happened last night-- She swallowed. She hadn't even been able to stop it; how could she dream of reversing it?

  
Her hands flexed on her legs, the knuckles scraped raw, blood beneath her fingernails. It wasn't from the incident, but from reporting it. She wanted to scream from the way they'd treated her at the police station, but she shoved it down. Justin had been raving about compartmentalizing after reading an article about it in Forbes, and all she'd really taken away from that horribly boring conversation was that you dealt with what you could deal with until it was time to move on. She couldn't deal with what had happened beyond reporting it, and she couldn't deal with reporting it more than kicking and screaming at a brick wall in a magic bubble until her lungs were as raw as her hands, knees, and shins. She just needed to be empty now, and clean.

  
Her thoughts strayed where she was doing her best to keep them from going, her chest convulsing in on itself, bile burning her throat as she fell forward onto her hands and knees, emptying the contents of her stomach for the third time in the past twenty-four hours. Wiping her mouth and spitting, Alex curled protectively into herself, her hipbone digging into the bathtub floor as the shower rained down on her, turning her skin bright lobster red, though the spots where she'd been bruised and marked were still painfully visible to anyone who bothered to look, black spreading across her skin like iniquitous corruption. She stayed frozen like that for hours, the water growing cold, her hair swirling into the drain. Moving hurt, and seemed impossible.

  
"Alex?"

  
She breathed in, coming back to a semblance of life.

  
A quiet knock came at the bathroom door as she pushed herself up, her arms shaking. She ignored how newly breakable they looked.

  
"Alex, are you okay?" Justin sounded slightly more urgent now, slightly more concerned.

  
She opened her mouth, expecting to wail and scream and say something horribly tragic. Instead, all that came out was, "I'm fine." And she sounded like she meant it.

  
She turned the water off, feeling formication-- the feeling of bugs crawling over your skin-- begin as soon as she did. She'd remembered the word largely because it had been hilarious when Justin had been asked to spell it, it being so close to "fornication" and still appearing at a children's spelling bee. One leg over the edge and then the other, and she felt a little bit like she was moving through a dream, gliding smoothly, though the pain was real enough.

  
There was no way she could not tell them. Her family. They would find out, since she'd gone to the police. They would find out, since the boy who'd done this to her at the party had been cute, and familiar. When they'd started talking they'd realized that Justin had played against his school when he was on the baseball team. But it was hard to face telling them, and her heart seized briefly as she thought of Max.

  
Her father had become a shell of who he once was, and she could understand the inclination. Watching their mother waste away had been brutal, and then it had all been for nothing. Pancreatic cancer was sneaky, and went largely undetected until it had already spread so far, dug in so aggressively that there was nothing to do. She didn't know what more bad news would do to him, but he was her father. Her worry for him was slight; he was supposed to take care of her. She couldn't help the little bit of anger she felt at the how he'd failed, and had stopped trying. Justin-- She swallowed involuntarily, wrapping the towel around herself and feeling him through the door. She could almost see him leaning his forehead against the wood as he waited for her to open the door, one hand beseechingly up. Outwardly, not much had changed between them since their mother had passed, but there was a new hidden element, where they were just a little bit kinder when no one was looking. They'd always loved each other, but it didn't always take tragedies for them to admit it anymore.

  
He'd stepped up, and she'd had to follow, though she couldn't say she'd done as admirably as he had. Not that she often admitted she found him admirable. Now he taught them their wizarding lessons, and remembered to force feed their father the bills when they arrived. The only thing that frightened her-- shove it down, down, down-- was that maybe this would make him look at her differently. She realized of course it would, because how could something like this not change things, but hoped that he wouldn't start avoiding her eyes entirely. She couldn't hack it if he did.

  
Max, though. Max was her little brother, and she'd known when she went to the police that people might not believe her. They might whisper "slut" and "liar" in the halls. And she could take it. It was worth it. But if there were repercussions-- and why wouldn't there be?-- she hadn't initially realized that Max and Justin would have to pay them too. She'd changed everyone's lives, but how, how could she ever just swallow it? How could she let him continue blithely on?

  
It was selfish, but she opened the door, her hair hanging heavily down in wet strands, the new trophies of his victory and her losses present on her arms and hands. Justin looked at her for a moment, his eyes locked onto hers, the steam swirling behind her and disappearing at the edge of the bathroom door. Then his eyes moved from her face, and hardened, softened.

  
"Alex?" His voice cracked.

  
She fought the urge to fling herself into his arms.

  
"What happened?" It was the first time she'd ever thought he sounded dangerous, and that more than anything nearly made her start crying.

  
***

  
Justin combed his fingers through her hair, her head resting on his lap. The TV was the main light in the living room, the morning too early, the day too grey. Bright shapes moved, the volume low enough to form a comforting shield of indistinguishable words.

  
"I'm sorry." She felt the vibrations of the words, even with her head on his thigh and not resting on his throat.

  
"It's not your fault."

  
"Alex," he said seriously, a prompt to look at him. He leaned forward, his hand turning her chin before she'd gathered the energy to do it herself. "It's not your fault either."

  
She leaned into his hand along her face, grateful he believed her. She'd known that he would, but that didn't lessen how good it felt.

  
Statistically, which wasn't how Alex had ever planned on starting a sentence, sexual assault wasn't something that left behind bruises, marks. She didn't know why, but learning the fact had made hers infinitely more precious. It made her not remembering very much of the act itself better, because here was proof that she'd fought, hard. For her, and for everyone not Justin. Her chin jutted stubbornly out, her eyes lit with defiance as she resolved to wear them where everyone could see them, ignoring the hard coiled black snake in her stomach, made up of her misgivings, doubt, and fear. She needed something though. Something that wasn't this nice, soft, slow, and sweet. Something to prevent her from crying into her pillows all day, and wailing "Why God?!" in the rain. She needed a fight, a distraction.

  
She could feel him, like a diver poised to spring forward, though he carried less surety, more tentative anxiety and concern. She laid her head back down on his legs, content to wait. His pinky finger-- resting with his hand in the hollow of her waist, arm giving off warmth she was again grateful for, since her shower had left her feeling as if she'd never be warm again-- twitched with nerves, while the other hand smoothly resumed running through her hair.

  
"Have you been to the hospital?"

  
This was the question he'd been afraid of, and rightfully so. She was lazy and opted for the easiest way out under the best of circumstances; the only reason she'd been so effective in dealing with this so far was detachment, her body mechanically moving her towards the right thing. Now she'd begun to resorb, and the idea of going to the hospital-- The "rape kit" had been intrusive enough. Now she had to think. She had to decide if she wanted the morning after pill. If she wanted the medicines that worked to prevent HIV, and other, less horrible STIs. Weigh the side effects, pros and cons. Swim back into the heavy stream of life, when all she wanted was a guarantee that she could just lie here in comfortable sweat pants with Justin for the next few weeks. Plus, it was where their mom had died, and her death had been irrevocably burned into all of their eyes, mind's and physical retina.

  
Instead of saying all, or even any of that, she said, "No. Will you take me?"

  
"Of course." He smoothed her hair away from her face, and then ran his thumb from the top side of her forehead to the pointed corner of her jaw. "What about dad?" This more quietly than the rest of their already quiet conversation.

  
She looked at him blackly and he smiled, his amusement every bit as dark as hers, both of them crushing their disappointment and small, sharp edges of pain under heel. It hadn't been a real suggestion, just one they'd needed made. Since their mother's death-- Alex broke the thought in half. They ran the sandwich shop fine, and neither of them could prop up their father when this moment made keeping their heads above the water nearly impossible, without a lead weight pulling them down.

  
She sighed and before she could overthink it, stood, feeling a strange new looseness in her body, like she didn't quite know how to work the controls any longer. He followed, and there was a silent moment where they stood there, his proximity steadying her. He was inimitably familiar, and she always knew her place when she was with him. It was good. _He_ was good. Then the moment had to end, or become something foreign.

  
She brushed past him, her thick fuzzy socks whispering over the floor as she made her way to the stairs, feeling smaller than she usually did. Her being able to sense him following behind her wasn't new-- it wasn't even something that'd developed with their new-ish kindness last year. All her life it was like she was some kind of sensor-- not sonar, because sonar was sending out waves and waiting for the bounce back, whereas her sense of him was far more intrinsic, and easy. He was the one little red dot constantly on her screen. Hands on the winding stair railings, feet following after each other, leaving the solitude of the morning undisturbed, since the slight noises and tangible companionship between them existed in their own private bubble, the world around them both unintrusive and unintruded upon. Things will change when they leave the house, and her mask, armor, whatever you want to call it, will instantaneously fall into place.

  
It would've been strange the way their bubble stretched and flexed, still fitting seamlessly around them when she was in her room getting dressed and he was in his. It would've been, but their own private space was yet another not-newness. Alex wondered sometimes, in her rare moments of introspection, if they would still be the same if Max had been the second child, and she'd been the third. Was it their ages that made them so strange? Their proximity in age, or the years they'd had when it had been just them? Or would he have loved her the same if she had been someone completely different, because even if she had been ten years younger and someone else's sister, they were still them?

  
Everything was weird. She couldn't seem to focus, and the looseness in her joints made her movements faster than they should've been, when the pain in all her muscles wanted her to move slow and hunched, like a very old woman. Alex didn't drink, or at least not very much. She drank socially, and even then she was rarely sloppy. She couldn't fully the fit peices together; why had she had so much to drink? If she hadn't, and had been, like, roofied, why wasn't she still feeling the effects? Or had her mind just kind of erased it, turned it into a jumbled, labyrinthian mix of sensations?

  
She pushed down on one of the bruises over her right hip, waiting for the pain to step in and force her into cohesion, and coherency, but she was left with nothing. How frigging apt. She couldn't feel the ghost of him touching her, like she had with the kit at the station, but her insides felt as scraped raw as her throat, and she was certain there were bruises there too, the pain coming in swirling waves that never fully ebbed away. She just wanted this to be over.

  
She sat limply on her bed, so tired, and caught in a tidal wave of iron thoughts that she was too entrenched in to realize she couldn't pull herself out of. Then Justin appeared, and the bubble reformed, rescuing her. He sat next to her, the bed giving under his weight and making her slide a little towards him. She was aware in a way she hadn't ever been before that her lower half was only covered with underwear and socks, and pulled her knees to her chest, leaning her head against his shoulder as she casually pulled the fuzzy blanket at the foot of her bed over her legs. She was sure he'd noticed, since her being uncomfortable in bathing suit levels of clothing around him had never been a thing, but he said nothing, hanging his arm over her shoulders.

  
"Do you need anything?"

  
She shook her head no. She didn't actually, except everything no one, including him, could ever give her. She stood again, and it didn't seem to be getting any easier to keep standing back up, the blanket wrapped awkwardly like a towel around her waist. Justin fell back on her bed, and she saw through him when he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, his hand in the way of seeing her even if his eyes had been open. She got dressed quickly, not bothering for her usual levels of layers, and fantastic style. She just wore jeans, converse, and her striped pajama shirt with Justin's pilfered T.O.B. shirt and a jacket overtop. He lay on her bed throughout, unmoving, and she wondered if he'd genuinely fallen asleep. His arm came around her too quickly when she curled up next to him, her head resting opposite his heart, her arm diagonal across his chest, even if he did keep his eyes closed. She wanted to stay here, but standing up again and again and again seemed important. Her eyes flicked to her alarm clock, and there was no way he could take her to the hospital and still be on time with the restaurant, even if they poofed from place to place.

  
She stood, she stood, she stood, she stood, and Justin propped himself up on his elbows, his eyes following her as she retrieved her wand from its hiding place. In addition to taking all the fun out of sneaking out, it was a little amazing that no one had ever seen her wand sticking out of the various, obvious places she kept it on her person, nor had it ever fallen out and gotten lost. She tried not to take that risk when she went places where it would be easily lost or found, and house parties on the Upper East Side with music that ground down into your bones counted. It'd left her with only hand magic, but that hadn't seemed like such a big deal until well into the night.

  
"You're okay to open up by yourself today?" she asked nonchalantly, fixing her hair in the mirror, even though there was no part of her that cared the slightest bit about what her hair looked like right now. She just didn't want to look at him, and weaken her resolve, or see her words pain him, if they did.

  
She heard him stand, and then he appeared in the mirror behind her, concern clouding his eyes and twisting his features. "We don't have to open today, Alex. You're more important."

  
She stopped pretending and turned, sighing heavily. He stepped closer, and folded her into his chest. "I can do this myself," she mumbled into his shirt.

 

"I know. You don't have to, though."

  
Alex stepped back, and there was some familiar sadness perforating their air. She was going to go, and he was going to open the sub shop, and that was the way she or he or they or the universe had decided it needed to be, so that was what they were going to do, regardless of if he wanted to be there, and of if she wanted him there, which she hadn't quite decided she did. This was going to be ugly, and hard, and it still wasn't a mess she wanted him to take on cleaning up.

  
"I'll see you when I get back," she said, her eyes hardening, chin lifting as she twirled her wand in her hand like a drum stick, and then vanished, leaving him empty in the center of her room.

  
He looked at the bed and remembered his hand on her shoulder when he'd woken her up for their covert flying lessons, and remembered sitting next to her while they soared over the city. Then he put the thoughts away, because there was nothing to be done about it, and went out, closing the door carefully behind him, as if afraid to wake someone who was no longer there.


	2. Remembering (and Outrunning)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is kind of a shorter chapter. If anyone has any questions or comments, feedback, etc I'm somewhat listening. I'd like to say "usually", but let's be honest here.

9.6 miles. 9.7...9.8...9 point Never stop running, and maybe you can finally outpace your thoughts, Alex. 10...10.2...10.7...10.9...11. She thought the treadmill would break before she did. 12.5 and it became harder to pretend she hadn't noticed the shaking, the tremors running through her body.

_Standing in front of his doorway felt inevitable, her comforter that she'd dragged with her puddling at her feet as she let it fall, not bothering to knock, her Justin sensor telling her he was awake, sitting on his bed, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, feeling her outside his door. Moonlight spilled down through the window in his room, while the hallway bracketed her in darkness. She was always partially in darkness these days._

_He looked like a stranger for a moment, sitting there. When had he grown so old? So sad? So defeated, and so much bigger than her? She used to be able to do more  pull-ups  than him; Chuck Norris would surely be disappointed his services were no longer required._

Her footsteps slowed, since even running for your life, everyone has limits, and she was too suddenly at the back of the treadmill track, her bone deep tiredness making her stumble as she all but fell off the end. She sat down too hard, setting off a symphony of pain and aches, pain like light pinging from one wound and battle scar to another, each setting the other off. If there was such a thing, she needed therapy for this. But who could she truly be honest with that wouldn't send her off to a nut house? Hello, my name is Alex. I'm not an alcoholic, an addict, and I don't have an eating disorder. But I am a wizard.

_"Would it be weird if I asked to stay?"_

_He looked at her, and she'd never seen his eyes so dark, tortured and pained. They said that actually, if she asked to stay she would be doing something completely within the usual realm of their relationship. But things had changed, without any real warning or reason. This time there was a painful lack of illusion, and asking to stay meant something. It meant she was asking for something it hurt to give, hurt not to give. Neither one of them knew which was worse. She was asking for change and a shattering of the lies they told everyone, including themselves, as well as asking for comfort and protection and_ refuge _. Because when had he not been her savior? And when had she not been selfish enough to demand he give her whatever she asked for, even if it ruined him, ruined her?_

_She needed to wipe the feeling of a guy at a party off of her. She needed him to wipe the feeling off._

Hello, my name is Alex. I'm not an alcoholic, an addict, and I don't have an eating disorder. But I am a wizard. My mother died of cancer last year.

_They've given into the lie, and the shoulds and the won'ts many times before. So when she asks to stay-- and she really would be fine if the illusion persisted, honest, as long as he let her sleep here and covered her skin with his own. Platonically-- When she asks to stay, and leaves her blanket at the door, and crawls beneath his covers in one of his t-shirts, and a pair of his boxers, they both feel the warped mantle of brother and sister settling around them. But he wouldn't look like rusty nails grated in his throat if that was all that was happening here, wouldn't look like he was fighting a losing war with his better half. Depending on who you ask, she is his better half._

_Alex had never been perfectly clear on what was irony and what wasn't, but whatever it was you could probably choke on it._

Hello, my name is Alex. I'm not an alcoholic, an addict, and I don't have an eating disorder. But I am a wizard. My mother died of cancer last year. My father is a constant disappointment.

God, she couldn't fucking face herself. Maybe the rape was a preemptive punishment for what she made Justin do to her, for how she broke and tainted and corrupted him with her own vile, grotesque blackness. Because she's only twisted into the shape of a human being. On the inside, Alex is something from hell, something far more disgusting and loathsome than anything they've ever encountered in the wizarding world. She remembered being evil, for that brief moment in time. "Love" will save you. How sickening. How repugnant.

Alex stood back up, and pushed sweat soaked hair back from her face. Keep standing up, keep moving and maybe she wouldn't catch up with herself. She hesitated before the treadmill, still whirring at the punishing pace she'd set for herself. Get back on, Alex, or go upstairs and pack a bag? How far can you run, really?

_"Do you remember-- Do you remember when you said you'd never leave me?" She'd also never been tentative before. Fuck being raped; it'd turned her into some wilting wallflower waif. Alliteration. Justin would be impressed._

_"You mean back when we had no parents?" He still hadn't turned to face her, but their bleak humor carried more bitterness than usual. She heard it easily in his voice, but saw it in the line of his broad shoulders too._

_She wanted to take that away from him, make things better, but could either of them truly claim to be fully themselves without some of the bad shit bogging them down? Wouldn't it be like erasing her current self to rewind time and invalidate a rape? That, she couldn't tell if it was worth it or not. But to erase Justin? To even begin to think about erasing him scared her more than she would ever admit to. She'd done it once. She couldn't live and do it again._

Hello, my name is Alex. I'm not an alcoholic, an addict, and I don't have an eating disorder. But I am a wizard. My mother died of cancer last year. My father is a constant disappointment. My brother and I have become the de facto adults of the household.

_Alex felt bile rise in her throat. She kept feeling skeleton fingers brushing over her skin. All the imagined ghost touches were caresses, which was what really made her want to throw up. If she'd felt herself being bruised over and over again, on repeat since she'd gone to the hospital and let another man she didn't know dispassionately touch her  invasively  in the most intimate and broken moment of her life, she'd have been okay. To date. The most broken moment of her life to date. With the way things had been going, surely something worse was around the corner. Did her dad sell her into prostitution next? For drug money, maybe?_

_He was aware of her, always, and she was grateful less for the wastebasket Justin handed her-- though she was grateful for that too, of course-- than for his hand rubbing slow circles over her back, like their mother'd done when she sat on the edge of their beds as they weren't feeling well. When they were feeling well, sometimes she'd draw stories, or words or maps to go along with a story, over their backs as they lay there giggling._

Hello, my name is Alex. I'm not an alcoholic, an addict, and I don't have an eating disorder. But I am a wizard. My mother died of cancer last year. My father is a constant disappointment. My brother and I have become the de facto adults of the household. I was raped two days ago.

_Her eyes were wide, and unusually guileless as they stared up at him, though she had no way of really knowing that except that she felt so full with sincerity it should've been shining from every pore. "I love you. For everything and nothing. You make me better."_

_"Alex--"_

_"Thank you, Justin. For everything you've done for me."_

_"'I'd never leave you.'"_

_"I know. Thank you for not leaving me here."_

_She closed her eyes, still violated. Still molested by the echos of what'd happened too soon for her to be fully over it. Still almost alone. Still broken, beaten, disappointed, disillusioned-- Still holding onto a  life raft  in the middle of the ocean. He laid down on top of the blankets, and his skin when he pulled her into his chest finally quieted everything jangling around in her head._

Hello, my name is Alex. I'm not an alcoholic, an addict, and I don't have an eating disorder. But I am a wizard. My mother died of cancer last year. My father is a constant disappointment. My brother and I have become the de facto adults of the household. I was raped two days ago. This morning, I fucked the boy I've been in love with since before I can remember.

_When she woke up he was staring at her, his alarm clock visible and out of reach on his desk beside his bed. 4:19. She'd actually slept more than she usually did, which was what you wanted to have happen when you'd had one of your worst days ever, but not what you expected. She moved forward without thought, her lips pressing briefly, chastely against his. Plenty of families kissed on the lips, and it was too early for the day to be clouded with last night's heaviness, and unending implications._

_She pulled back, and the moment was still silent, innocent. But then he closed the distance between them, with as little pause and warning as she'd displayed. His hand came along the side of her head, their lips and teeth mashing together in the hard kiss, making it harder to pretend this was something families did. And when they'd been doing so good at pretending. He pulled back, and his eyes searched hers. Whatever he found there, it drew them back together. Not as hard, but more desperate now as she fought to get out from beneath his heavy blankets, press herself against him, cup him through his sweats and feel him move against her fingers when she breathlessly exhaled his name. She wanted him to be her first, screw the other night._

_The sex was awkward and clamant and necessary in the same way air was. She felt like she was choking without him inside her, her lungs uninflated even as she struggled to make them rise, caught on a hook in her chest. He shuddered when her fingers drew softly up his bare chest, his hands on her hips beneath his baggy shirt tightening. She liked the way they moved up along the tensed muscles in her stomach, like he'd discovered something miraculous, and the sounds they made were wet and uncomfortable and needy and a little like sobbing. That last one might've been her. Like the world-eater she was, her lips against his swallowed any prayers he might've uttered, and she drowned everything she was and didn't want to be within him. Please let me breathe again._

_Now more than she ever had, she needed him with her. In every way. Any way. Touching her. As close as possible. She needed to crush their bones together and crawl inside his skin. Please love me. Please save me. Because what high school boy doesn't need all that put on him? Still, he looked into her eyes so earnestly when he came that it brought her along with him. And she loved him, she loved him, she loved him. She would always love him, even if this made him hate her._

Hello, my name is Alex. I'm not an alcoholic, an addict, and I don't have an eating disorder. But I am a wizard. My mother died of cancer last year. My father is a constant disappointment. My brother and I have become the de facto adults of the household. I was raped two days ago. This morning, I fucked the boy I've been in love with since before I can remember. Oh, and we're brother and sister.

How does a therapist even begin to help you deal with all of that?

Alex thought of the duffel bag under her bed, looked at the treadmill controls. So which one's it going to be, girlie girl?

 


End file.
